Twice a year I try to elect public servants that will look after the common man rather than the corporate sponsors of government. Each year, it gets harder and harder to find them. Our current administration has shown very little desire to antagonize the natural gas industry. I don't know why, but I have suspicions like everyone else.

Posted on: 2011/7/3 13:48

_________________The doctrine of free will is the invention of the ruling class.

But is all the dissention over drilling actually making a difference? I'm mad about it too... but all the protests in the world hasn't changed this industry. In fact, it's getting bigger. Now that its summer in BradCo the drilling has tripled in the amount of workers, wells, active drill sites, and (the bane of my exsistence) TRAFFIC!!!

It was a bit before my time but didnt this state learn any kind of a leason when they realized what the cole mining was doing to the streams?? Now that some of those streams are just about back to being in good shape they start the polution thing all over again! To think that the PF&G commission has given permission for drilling in order to make a little more money is very discouraging! I would love to see more windmills on the mountain tops here in Pa. They actually look pretty cool over there in Centralia. How about some solar fields too??

I have to say we, the residents of PA, as a whole, have to be the stupidest bunch of voters in our great nation. Not only do we elect the gas industry's Bitch as our governor, but we seem to constantly thank the gas industry for the reaming it's giving us (pun intended).

I hear stories all the time in NEPA about how nice the gas industry people are, how quickly they respond, how much money they are bringing to our area. Here are a few anecdotes:

1. Homeowners' wells become mysteriously contaminated with methane and the gas companies ride in to the rescue with water buffaloes to supply safe drinking water. The homeowners thank them and sing their praise for the quick remediation.

2. Heavily laden gas trucks pulverize roads and bridges not designed to bear their weight. The gas companies ride in to the rescue and repair the damages, sometimes completely repaving the roads. The local residents thank them and sing their praise for assuming the cost and task of infrastructure repair.

3. A farmer in Wyoming County who owns 300 acres signs a lease paying him $5000.00....TOTAL! In the lease is a clause that gives the gas company the right to renew at their discression only. When friends object, telling him he is getting hosed and should sue them for fair compensation, he says the gas rep is so nice and he doesn't want to make the gas company angry.

4. The Honesdale Business Association decided to improve their business in downtown by sending welcome baskets to all the out of state workers the gas companies bring to build a gas pipeline in Wayne County.

5. The gas companies have a town hall meeting in Tunckhannock to address concerns of the local residents. One resident asks them if they flair of the gas at the wells. The rep promises the resident the gas is "so clean there is no need to flair." Meanwhile, no less than 7 wells in the surrounding area can be observed flaring at that moment (Is this the Jedi Mind Trick or a bold-faced lie?).

So we are probably not getting much real revenue through business taxes since the gas companies are clearly smarter than we are and they own the state house. We are not getting high paying jobs, only truck driving and basic labor jobs since the gas companies are bringing in experienced, skilled workers from out of state. We are not getting hotel and occupancy tax revenue since the out of state workers are staying long enough to be exempt from that. AND, we are not charging an impact fee or severance tax even though they are causing damage well beyond that of nearly all businesses in our state.

Yep, we're a pretty stupid lot.

Please, someone convince me I'm wrong.

sadly, Mike

Posted on: 2011/7/3 16:40

_________________
We did not inherit the land from our fathers, we are borrowing from our children.

Prof: I want to be proved wrong becasue that would mean the situation is not as dire as I think it is. Also, sign me up for impeachment of our (not so) beloved governor.

Franklin: here is my understanding of the problems with flairing - Aside from the roaring noise all through the night and the huge -sometimes up to 100 foot high- open flame that lights up a normally peaceful night sky, a large number of pollutants are released into the air during the flaring process, making it an undesirable practice. Included in these airborne pollutants are the chemicals used to frac the well, as well as any of 5-dozen other pollutants including the following: acetalhyde, acrolein, benzene, ethyl benzene, formaldehyde, hexane, naphthalene, propylene, toluene, and xylenes. Not all of these are burned off in a flare and the air can have a putrid odor that fills the small valleys

Posted on: 2011/7/4 8:46

_________________
We did not inherit the land from our fathers, we are borrowing from our children.

Couple months ago the so called ecologists were complaining that the wells were not flared. If gasses are just released into the atmosphere the pollutants are much worse than any results of flaring. I think you will find that flaring does a good job of burning these off.

Franklin,The complaints about flaring have been relatively common in NCPA since the practice began, it is not your so called ecologists, but locals who do not like having 50-75 foot high flames burning nonstop for weeks on end, and it is loudn deafening at night.

I don't know if flaring is bad from the environmental stand point, but for people who have to live near it, you cannot simply ignore it, nor should you have to. The need to flare could be eliminated if companies were willing to invest in a pipeline prior to drilling the wells, but they don't want to make that investment, therefore locals have to live with it. Of course, why should the companies care, you cannot see the lights from Texas where they live.

Just this past week I crossed this expansion just north of Waymart where I was blown away by the size and scope of this project. Also saw an excavator sitting in what looked like a wetland.

Then while in the western part of the state I also noticed a noticed a compressor station being built Franklin. Must have been 80 pickup trucks working at this site. Fortuntately the line is following an existing easement. Regardless the project is massive!!

48,000 jobs in gas drilling related industries added last year in PA. 71% of those were filled by PA residents at average salaries higher than the statewide average. In all honesty, those are just very hard numbers to go up against.